Small telephone operators except CAMTECO (Camiguin Telephone Cooperative) are affected by cellphone and Internet. But CAMTECO is in a better revenue position because of the local metering. CAMTECO has a better chance of survival.

Now comes the Internet – this time it’s the overseas calls. Another blow due to email, voice/video chat and VoIP (simply means Internet telephony like Skype, Viber, etc.). Will jumping to VoIP beneficial to the small operators?

Without going into detailed research like world market demands, market share, etc. – just follow what big Philippine telcos are doing:

convergence of technologies: voice and data

inter-connection via VoIP

Convergence

By merging phone calls and Internet into one infra-structure:

one cable – from CAMTECO to subscribers

one radio/fiber-optic – among all stations around the island

equipment that carry both information in all stations

huge savings is possible. If PLDT is migrating to VoIP, it should be the way to go.

Another major advantage of upgrading to VoIP – virtually unlimited capacity of the system to add subscribers. In contrast to the current system, to expand the system it must be byblocks of thousand lines. The initial investment is huge.

With VoIP, CAMTECO can expand in very small increments – as few as 24 lines! With virtually unlimited capacity plus hundreds of calls in one time (One system is limited only to 24 connections), CAMTECO can restructure the local metering rate to encourage more calls to hundreds. More calls means higher revenue.

Overseas calls

Another problem, how to regain lost revenue from overseas calls. Only one solution – focus on Internet connection. With higher monthly fee, CAMTECO prefer Internet subscription although it means losing the revenue share from incoming overseas calls (which is small anyway – the big chunk goes to PLDT). But Internet will only appeal to the young generation not to the parents. The popular concept of Internet means – PC/laptop is required. This is wrong! An Internet connection can carry any information – text, photos, audio and many more.

If audio or voice is the only interest, no PC/laptop is needed. Just plug any of these to the modem: